Of Woes and Goodbyes
by I-Breached-UR-Security
Summary: Melinda has finished living; her time has run out. But before she steps into the light, she has to say her goodbyes.


**First Ghost Whisperer fanfic. :) This is just a oneshot. :D I love this show bwahahahaha.**

"Grandma?" Lily rolled over in her sleep, and her eyes caught the dark shape hovering in the corner of the huge bedroom.

Melinda let out a breath that she had not been required to breathe and took a step out of the shadows. Lily took after her mother, Melinda's son's wife, being tiny and slender and looking like a little doll. At twelve years old she was the same size as a fourth grader. It was worse in the bedroom her parents (workoholics that replaced their absence with shiny toys) had set her up in. Everything in was too large; kind size bed, dresser as tall as Melinda... It was too much, almost to the point where it was embarrassing.

"Grandma?" Lily repeated, standing up, her bright brown eyes trained on Melinda's figure as she stepped forward again.

"Hi, Lily," Melinda smiled, but the tears were building in her eyes. Tears of nostalgia, loss, hope, fear, and acceptance. She tried not to think of the irony of the situation, of how she'd done this same thing with her own grandmother, the grandmother she'd missed every day her whole life. Would Lily miss her?

Lily stretched. "What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night."

Melinda thought of Jim, who'd left Sam's body (his final body) two years before. He was waiting for her, with her grandma, her mother, and her father. Those were the people she expected to see in a matter of minutes when she finally walked into that light that shone in the corner of her tear-filled eyes. But first, she had to say goodbye to Lily.

"Grandma," Lily breathed, suddenly stepping out of her too-big bed. It was as high as her waist when she was standing up. "You're..."

The recognition and loss was apparent in her eyes, the same eyes Melinda had, the same hair cascading down her shoulders and sticking to her face from sweat. She was the spitting image of Melinda, right down to the nose.

Melinda nodded. "You'll be fine," she gasped, trying to hold back the tears, tears if joy, of fierce love. And she knew it, just as her own grandmother had known it before she'd crossed over all those years before.

"But... I'll be alone!" She sobbed. Grief wracked her body. "You can't go! I'll be alone!"

Melinda smiled still, tears spilling down her cheeks. She knew that the other kids were cruel to Lily, that she'd made the mistake of talking to spirits in front of them, and that her parents were always gone. Melinda had been her rock, her only company, for a long time.

"But you'll be okay," she brushed a hand across Lily's cheek. The tear lit up and slid down, landing with a soft splash on the wooden floor in front of Lily's bare feet. There was a soft silence. "I know it's hard, Lily. I know. But you'll live through it. And then you'll fall in love and have a baby, and you'll blink and you'll be here with your granddaughter, saying goodbye."

"No," she protested. "Stay with me!" She stepped forward, reaching for Melinda, but the light was shining in Melinda's eyes until she couldn't see anything else.

"I love you, Lily. I'll be watching for you." She landed a swift kiss across Lily's forehead, and then she stepped away from the wailing child, expecting to see her grandmother, her husband, and her parents waiting for her in her afterlife.

Instead her eyes widened. They were there of course, smiles across their faces, faces she'd wanted to see again for so long. But there were more, more than she'd ever thought would wait for her. Hundreds, maybe thousands, all in a large crowd, stretching on out of her sight. She stepped forward, and the crowd surged toward her, and she was wrapped in hug after hug, passed through arm after arm of every person she had ever helped cross over, their families, so many people and faces, and she remembered them all.

And what must have been hours later she made it back to her family, and they were wrapped in one hug. Words didn't need to be said.

And finally, with tear of love pouring from her eyes, she stood wrapped in Jim's arms, and turned around to wait for Lily.


End file.
